Motorcycle scene- The Great Escape, 1963, Steve McQueen - YouTube Motorcycle scene- The Great Escape, 1963, Steve McQueen Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jul 6, 2012 The legendary scene from the 1963 film 'The Great Escape' starring Steve McQueen. Here he tries to outwit the Germans on his motorcycle (Triumph T60) and manages to jump over the barbed wire.. One of the most well-known bike scenes of all time, ridden by a mad-keen biker and legend.

To experience more cool stuff and enjoy what we do find us on Facebook Category The German motorcycle from 'The Great Escape' links The TT Special 650 Triumph from The Great Escape For the filming of the climactic scene in The Great Escape in which Steve (as Virgil Hilts) hijacks a German warbike and becomes the center of one of cinema's most famous chase scenes, a little bit of improvising was done, as explained by Steve to writer William Nolan: We had four bikes for this film. I was running a TT Special 650 Triumph. We painted it olive drab and put on a luggage rack and an old seat to make it look like a wartime BMW. We couldn't use a real BMW, not at the speeds we were running, since those old babies were rigid-frame jobs, and couldn't take the punishment. The camera tricks didn't end there though. Steve's riding was too fast for the German stuntmen chasing him, so to solve the problem, Steve doubled for his pursuers as well, effectively chasing himself on camera! The Triumphs ridden by Steve in the film were decked out and provided by Steve's friend and ofttimes stunt double Bud Ekins.

Homage to Steve McQueen's Great Escape site An obsession with the movie, The Great Escape, has led Brit Don Whistance on a five-year search which has revealed several of the 1963 film’s famous locations, including the famous jump scene. His resulting website, thegreatescapelocations.com , has now become a homage for other film and motorcycle fans. Don Whistance “As a result of the website I know motorbikers have visited the jump field and Chad McQueen (the actor’s son) drove a motorbike over there last year,” Don says. “Last year a German friend from Munich drove down on his bike to search for the locations with me.” Don’s obsession with the movie began after reading the autobiography of the actor’s first wife, Neile McQueen so he decided to go in search of Bavaria Studios and Deining, where the McQueens lived during filming. “So 800 miles later we arrived in Munich and then drove on down to Fussen where the motorbike chase was filmed. That was in 2010 and is when the website was in its infancy,” he says.

“The research has taken place every year and from 2011 to 2014 I have flown by Easyjet and hired a car. So the research has been over five years.” His research, which involved matching stills from the film with his travels, has revealed the exact jump site. Even though McQueen’s character, USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts (the “Cooler King”), tries to jump the barbed-wire border fence between Germany and Switzerland, it was actually filmed in the hills around Pfronten, about 100km from the Swiss border. The jump took place in the Benken area in a field, alongside a small road between Rossmoos and Benken, with the Alps in the background. Don also found some interesting background information about the filming of the jump after interviewing the property owner, Josef ‘Seppy’ Kern. Seppy on his tractor Seppy says he remembers as a 16-year-old that they filmed for a week in his father’s field and that there were about 20 attempts to jump the fence each day.

“Steve McQueen would speed around the field with those children who were happy to take a ride with the Hollywood film star while they waited for the scene to be set up once again,” Seppy says on the website. Don’s site also confirms the fact that McQueen didn’t do the jump in the film, even though he was a very competent rider who represented the USA in the gruelling 1964 six-day enduro. The film studio thought it was too risky, so McQueen enlisted his friend Bud Ekins to do the 4m jump and the stunt where he slides the bike into the barbed wire fence. It was actually a wire fence with rubber bands tied to it to look like barbed wire. However, McQueen did most of the other stunt riding, including wearing a German uniform and riding as one of his character’s pursuers because the stunt riders weren’t good enough to keep up. And while he didn’t jump the fence for the cameras, McQueen did jump it after filming was over. One of the most talked about stunts in cinematic history almost didn’t happen. It wasn’t in the script and McQueen insisted on it to give his character more screen time.

In other interesting tidbits from the site, it is believed that an unnamed Australian rider who was a also friend of McQueen’s may have performed the jump. The rider was competing in the European motocross championship and happened to be in Germany at the time. He was put in uniform and was filmed practising the stunt, so it is still not confirmed who did the jump that is shown in the final cut. Don’s favourite page is the “Hopfen Am See” page because it is the “trip wire” scene where McQueen steals the Triumph TR6 Trophy Bird motorcycle which was dressed up to look like WWII BMW bikes. In the background is the white church which is where he lived during this part of the filming. There are many other interesting pages that show various bike and non-bike-related scenes. Any fans of the film, McQueen and motorbikes will find the site well worth a visit. AMA Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame | Steve McQueen INDUCTED: 1999 Actor, Motorcycle Enthusiast, Off-Road Racer Steve McQueen was one of the leading movie actors of the 1960s and ‘70s, but he was also an avid motorcyclist and supporter of the sport.

Among McQueen’s many contributions to motorcycling include financing the influential motorcycle movie, "On Any Sunday," in which he rode with buddies Malcolm Smith and Mert Lawwill. McQueen also supported a team of off-road riders that included himself and Bud and Dave Ekins, who competed in the 1964 International Six Day Trial in Germany. McQueen’s unabashed enthusiasm for motorcycling did wonders for the image of the sport during a time when the general public often looked at motorcyclists with disdain. McQueen was born in the Indianapolis suburb of Beech Grove, Indiana, on March 24, 1930. He had a troubled youth and for a time was raised by a great uncle on a farm in Missouri. When he was 12, he moved to Los Angeles with his mother. There, he became involved in gangs and ended up in reform school. Later in life he credited the California Junior Boys Republic for helping him get on the right track. After becoming a successful movie star, McQueen made generous donations to the institution. McQueen joined the Marines and early on spent a good amount of time in the brig for various offenses.

He later redeemed himself by diving in and helping rescue five servicemen who had fallen into the frigid Arctic Sea after their ship hit a sand bar. McQueen was promoted to honor guard and was honorably discharged in 1950. After his stint in the service, McQueen drifted around the country supporting himself with menial jobs. It was during this time that he took up motorcycling. His first motorcycle was a 1946 Indian Chief. In a 1971 interview in Sports Illustrated, McQueen recalls that he was smitten by motorcycling from the start. "I was so proud of that Indian that I rode it over to see a girl I was dating," he recalled. "She said, 'You don’t expect me to ride around with you on that, do you?' I surely did. The girl went and the bike stayed." By the mid-1950s McQueen’s acting career began to take off and a decade later he had become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. He was famous for portraying gritty characters in popular movies such as "The Magnificent Seven," "Hell is for Heroes," "Bullitt" and others.

Despite his success as an actor, McQueen didn’t shy away from motorcycling. Instead, he became even more active. In the late 1950s, McQueen and a group of friends took a risky motorcycle trip across revolutionary Cuba. "Batista and Castro were shooting it out across the countryside. There were uniforms everywhere, but we had a great adventure, which is one of the things that make motorcycling so great because it never fails to give you a feeling of freedom and adventure," he said. In the early 1960s, he and another actor, Dennis Hopper, were riding their street bikes around Hollywood when they came across some off-road cyclists riding in the hills. They pulled over to watch and McQueen was awestruck by the skill of the riders motoring up incredibly steep hills. The very next day, he purchased a Triumph 500cc off-road bike from Bud Ekins. Ekins helped McQueen learn the ropes, and before long McQueen began competing in off-road events around Southern California. Later, his contracts with movie studios prohibited him from racing motorcycles. He got around that technicality by racing under the pseudonym of Harvey Mushman.

McQueen raced in many of the top off-road races on the West Coast during the ‘60s and early-1970s, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400 and the Elsinore Grand Prix. According to Bud Ekins, McQueen became quite a respectable racer. "He never could race enough, because of his movie commitments, to earn enough points for his expert license," Ekins explained. "He always raced as an amateur, but that was crazy since he usually finished ahead of the other amateurs and most of the experts." McQueen and Ekins dreamed up perhaps the most famous motorcycle jump ever filmed when shooting the movie "The Great Escape" in Germany. He called good friend Ekins over to be his stunt double to shoot the climactic motorcycle jump in which McQueen’s character was trying to escape German soldiers by motorcycle during World War II. While shooting that movie, McQueen and Ekins took a break to watch the International Six Days Trial in Germany. The two would return two years later, along with Dave Ekins, to compete in the ISDT.

McQueen became so closely associated with motorcycling that Popular Science had him write a series of motorcycle reviews for that magazine in the mid-1960s. In the early 1970s, movie producer Bruce Brown approached McQueen about helping him finance a documentary movie on motorcycling. McQueen, fully knowing that he would probably never profit from this type of film, nevertheless agreed to back Brown. The movie he financed turned out to be the classic, "On Any Sunday," not only the best motorcycle movie of its time, but also a commercial success. In 1971, a shirtless McQueen was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated jumping a Husqvarna off-road bike. Inside that issue was an extensive interview with McQueen on his love for the sport. McQueen also became interested in collecting classic motorcycles. By the late-1970s, his collection included well over 100 machines and was valued in the millions of dollars. McQueen died from lung cancer on November 7, 1980. He was just 50 years old.

His contribution to motorcycling helped the sport overcome its outlaw image and helped set the stage for the popularity of the sport during the 1990s. THE JUMP and THE FENCE click on image.... Sturges and McQueen on location in southern Bavaria. Filming took place around the town of Fussen, with the Swiss border more than 100 kilometres away in reality. The 'jump' and the 'fence' scenes were located in the hills around Pfronten. More specifically in the Benken area in a field, alongside the small road between Rossmoos and Benken, with the Alps in the background. It's a case of trying to match up stills from the scene with the landscape. The heavy Triumph TR6 Trophy Birds were dressed up to look like BMW World War II bikes. Josef is the present owner of the iconic 'jump' field.... Shooting at the "fence" (McQueen would often relax by riding the bike up and down the 'jump' field...) These two photographs are linked by the embankment....

In the distance is the embankment where Steve McQueen would have lunch while the filming and scene was arranged by the crew and Robert Reylea (who is seen below obtaining something from a box) McQueen enters the 'jump' field and this hut is where "The Stool is the craze" lives.... "In dividing up the post-escape work, I got most of the motorcycle chase, which meant moving my two Volkswagen buses into the hills around Fussen near the Austrian border. The sequences featured McQueen and his motorcycle pal from the States, Bud Ekins, choreographing and performing the bulk of the riding. Steve was an accomplished rider, which served him well because it wasn't easy handling the unusually heavy Triumph TR6 Trophy Birds, which were dressed up to look like BMW World War II bikes." (Not So Quiet On The Set p.188) "McQueen's last day on the picture was the day we shot the jump sequence: Hilts attempts to gain his freedom by propelling his motorcycle over the barbed wire fences lining the Swiss border. The jump covered a spread of hillside that ran about sixty-five feet from start to finish, with the bike clearing twelve feet in the air at its highest point.

Bud Ekins was the first to make the jump in rehearsals. Despite insurance restrictions prohibiting McQueen from attempting dangerous stunts, Steve jumped it next - just to show everyone he could. Both Ekins and McQueen appear in the shots leading up to the jump where Hilts races back and forth gauging the terrain, and it's Ekins who lays the motorcycle down into the wire when Hilts is captured." (p.189) "Who makes the actual jump that appears in the film? Everyone involved seems to have their own version of what happened and which rider made the final cut. An Australian rider who McQueen and Elkins knew from the European motocross circuit also performed the jump. The guy just happened to be in Germany and was visiting Steve and Bud on location. In the spirit of everyone pitching in, we put him in costume and had him jump the fence. So we had three riders - McQueen, Ekins and the Australian - captured on film making the jump.

My bet would be that Ekins' jump is in the final film - but, in truth, I'm not sure it wasn't an anonymous rider from Australia who is in the final cut performing one of the most memorable stunts in motion picture history." (pp.189-190) With the Germans closing in, Hilts tries to use a dip in the terrain as a ramp to jump the fence. After heroically landing the first jump, Hilts turns around to attempt to jump the second part of the fence, only for a blast of machine gun fire to force him to crash into the barbed wire and for him to be recaptured. (Photograph shows James Coburn talking to a friend with John Sturges talking to a German soldier) The following series of photographs show the actual field used for the 'jump' and the 'fence' scenes in The Great Escape film. The jump covered a spread of hillside that ran about sixty-five feet from start to finish, with the bike clearing twelve feet in the air at its highest point. The 'dip' area where the bike took off and nearby the part of the field where Steve McQueen crashed into the fence....

The small hamlet near where the bike crashed into the fence.... The photographs below is the field to the right of the above field. When Steve McQueen crashes into the barbed wire, Oberkirch is the town seen in the background. Bud Ekins....stuntman Two feet, four, six . . . 7ft off the ground. After repeated nervous, muddy attempts, Bud Ekins, a motorcycle stunt rider, coaxed the old Triumph into the air, flew over the strands of fake barbed wire and into the history books. The sequence helped make The Great Escape a cinema classic and turn Steve McQueen into an international star. It also made Ekins, who doubled as McQueen, a legend among fellow riders. In stunt-riding circles, the jump is still regarded as one of the most technically skilled, and controversial, performed for the big screen. Controversial because Ekins later claimed it was done on a standard, factory-built Triumph. Some film historians say such a jump could not have been accomplished except by special effects or on a highly modified machine. In the film, Virgil Hilts, the Cooler King, played by McQueen, is fleeing from the Germans and trying to escape to Switzerland.

He seizes a military motorbike and a high-speed chase ensues through the rolling fields near the Swiss border. Though McQueen did much of his own stunt riding, the jump was deemed too risky by the film studioï¿½s insurers and McQueen nominated Ekins, a friend who ran a motorcycle repair shop in California, to do it. The scene required propelling the heavy bike high enough to get it over the first of two fences that film crews had built to resemble the border. For its day, it was a daring feat, no less so for the fact that the barbed wire was actually little strips of rubber tied around normal wire, made by the cast and crew in their free time. Even that concession to safety was not out of concern for Ekins, but because the script required McQueen to become entangled in the wire before surrendering. The Great Escape chase continues (5:10) A new house and road to BENKEN cut through here. Bud's wife, Betty Ekins was on location the day of the jump, where she took a cine-film of the two friends during make-up before the scene. She filmed the transformation of Bud, a six-foot-four dark-haired man, into a five-foot-ten blonde.

They did this with the use of masking tape around Bud's forehead, ears and neck- before using automotive paint in an aerosol can to spray his head gold. Makeup has come a long way... One day the Ekins family may release this film of the guys laughing and behaving badly. Betty also managed to shoot the jump from another angle, that shows Bud coming towards the camera- and you can see how high he really jumps! Not an easy feat with only two inches of suspension and a combined bike and rider weight in excess of 600 lbs. Steve could have done it himself," said Bob Hoy, a stuntman friend of Ekins. "He did the lead-up to it, but Bud did the jump. It was a tough jump. You can only do that kind of thing once; you either make it or you don't make it." Susan Ekins, the stuntman's daughter and an executive film producer, said her father was "very proud" of the spectacular jump, shot on location in Germany.

She said her father and McQueen dug out a ramp in the soil and practised jumping the motorcycle over a rope to see if it could clear the fence." Steve was a capable rider, but they wouldn't let a star do a jump of that nature because they couldn't afford to have him hurt," she said. (Bud & Betty Ekins, Steve McQueen and James Garner) After the film was released, Ekins kept quiet about the jump. His silence helped perpetuate the widely held belief at the time that it was McQueen who had cleared the fence and not a stunt double, though McQueen never made this claim. Before his death in 2007, Ekins recounted the experience in a rare interview. ï¿½When I was in the air it was dead silent,ï¿½ he said. ï¿½It was hard. It just went bang, then it bounced. I made it on the first pass. I filmed it. That was that.ï¿½ Ekins later admitted numerous practice attempts had failed. ï¿½The effects man put a piece of string across at all these different heights,ï¿½ he recalled.

ï¿½The first time, Iï¿½d take a run at it and jump maybe 2ft off the ground. Then we would take a shovel and dig this natural ramp, changing the angles on it.ï¿½ (This is the original 1962 Triumph that Bud Ekins used for the jump scene in The Great Escape) Both Ekins and McQueen appear in the shots leading up to the jump where Hilts races back and forth gauging the terrain, and it's Ekins who lays the motorcycle down into the wire when Hilts is captured. The 'fence' appears closer to the buildings in the background and may well have been a different location to where the bike was laid down. Hilts attempts to jump the barbed wire Swiss-German border fence with a stolen Wehrmacht motorcycle, but his petrol tank is hit and he becomes entangled in the wire. The Great Escape scene (6:20) The video above details the route taken by McQueen from where he obtains the German bike and to the crash scene into the fence: 1. Wire tied to two roadside posts with Hopfen am See in the distance. 2.

Rides towards Hopfen am See with the lake on the left. 3. Mouths 'Switzerland' with the lake now on the right and Hopfen am See in the distance. 3. Weissbach junction where McQueen kicks a German soldier in the stomach. 4. Rides off into the back streets of Weissbach and up through a hillside. 5. Arrives at a hut with Zell in the background and Pftonten-Berg on the other side of the hut. 6. SchieBstandingweg has a minor road where the 'poster' photograph was taken and a hut is passed with a swastika painted on it with Pftonten-Berg church is in the background. 7. Rides up steep hill and passes a hut with Pftonten-Berg in the background. 8. Germans on motorbikes are on the next tier down from the hut with Pftonten-Berg again in the background. 9. McQueen rides up a hill with a large mountain in the background with Weissbach to the right and Pftonten-Berg to the left. 10. Finally sweeps into the Benken area where the field and the fence await to be crashed into.......

Chad McQueen arrived at the 'jump scene' four weeks ago with a friend explained Josef on Thursday, 8th August 2013 to Kevin Payne This scene starts at the roundabout near Pfronten-Berg Seventy-six men got out that night. Only three made it out of Nazi occupied territory to freedom. By Hitler's orders, fifty were rounded up by the Gestapo and executed.......... In The Great Escape film, the German lorries carrying the escaped prisoners, reach a 'mini' roundabout and each of the lorries peel away in different directions. A religious cross can be seen at the road side. The following photographs are at the 'new' roundabout where the roads lead off to Pfronten- Berg and another road leads off to Weissbech. The road which has the cross on it leads down towards Zell and as you drive down this road the 'hut' scene is on your right immediately next to a tall electricity pylon......... As the fifty escape prisoners walk across the darkened hill side, Pfronten-Berg's St.Nikolaus Church can be seen silhouetted in the distance.

Steve McQueen in Great Escape Steve McQueen in Great Escape { 24 comments… read them below or add one } William T. McIntyre June 2, 2010 at 12:09 pm This picture is obviously from the set of The Great Escape. Here’s an interesting Steve McQueen fact. Mr. McQueen did all of his own motorcycle stunts and would only ride Triumph motorcycles. If you’ll remember, he steals this bike from the Germans and jumps the fence. Notice the bike, it’s a Triumph. You say, “but wait, the Germans used BMW bikes.” You’d be right. Steve McQueen, however, gets what Steve McQueen wants. John Forbes June 2, 2010 at 7:44 pm Let’s remember this: the Cary Grant and Steve McQueen who we admire from movies were the facile creations of Hollywood. In real life, both of these men struggled with the dissonance between their public images and their real selves. I’m not saying that either was a bad guy; they were not. But let’s choose our heroes from those living among us, not from those up on the screen.

Jason June 11, 2010 at 8:02 pm @William T. McIntyre, McQueen liked and rode all kinds of motorcycles, In addition to several Triumphs, he owned Indians, Husqvarnas, and Hondas to name a few. And while McQueen did many of his own stunts, the most dangerous ones were performed by his friend and fellow racer, Bud Ekins. For a great read about McQueen’s cars, motorcycles, stunts, and racing, try /McQueen’s Machines/ by Matt Stone. Steve June 16, 2010 at 8:13 am Jason, You beat me to it. Steve McQueen is one of my personal heroes but he did not do the motorcycle jump scene in TGE; Bud Ekins did. Ironically, the motorcycle was done up to look like a German military machine, but was actually a Triumph. The bike still exists.

dannyb278 August 21, 2013 at 3:16 pm Steve mcqueen loved racing triumphs in the early 60′s but he was a avid bike collector and bough and ride all manner of brands, especially Indian and Triumph, but also favored the smaller, lighter and faster honda dirtbike which started to appear in the early to mid 70′s as well as the Husky’s he rode in On any Sunday. The reason they used the triumph in the great escape was not becuase “steve mqueen gets what he wants” but because ww2 era BMW’s could have never made that jump and the TR6 that Ekins jumped with was pretty much THE bike to use back then as it was a established desert racer. Valerie December 31, 2013 at 9:01 am Steve McQueen had a passion for racing cars, bikes and collecting them. He was a fantastic Actor. After all these years – long after his Death, I still admire him. For me, that says a lot. I love riding Bikes, especially my m/c – so I can understand the passion in his personal life.

He was one of my admirers & still is! Malcolm Harper March 23, 2014 at 4:36 pm Several of the actors in the great escape did the jump off screen, in the hollow I the field was a ramp to take off on ( obviously you couldn’t see this in the film ) . The jump in the film was made by bud Elkins , who did most of the stunts in bullit , including the car chase. This was done early am when Steve was still asleep. The reason for this was that he wrecked a few mustang gear boxes and ford motor company wouldn’t donate more cars. So bud had to do the driving before Steve awoke, when he did, the shot was in the can. The driver of the dodge was a real time actor /stunt man. Stan June 18, 2015 at 1:06 am I’m sure Bud Ekins jumped that fence. I grew up in Sherman Oaks, about half a block from Ventura Blvd, on Willis Ave, which was a dirt road at the time. It dead-ended at the Los Angeles River, and later at the 101 Freeway.

I remember, maybe as a 4 or 5 year old kid, going down to the ‘corner’ to watch the guys at the motorcycle shop there. My parents didn’t care for those loud bikes when they’d ride down our street, but any time I was there and saw him I’d say ‘hi Bud’ to Bud and he’d say ‘hi Stan’ to me! By the time I started elementary school (two blocks the other side of Ventura Bl), the street was paved and the shop was gone and after a while there was a car wash there. I visited his shop a few times later when I was in high school. It was now a mile or two further East on the other side if Ventura Bl. I only saw him there maybe once, and of course he didn’t recognize me, but the shop always had a lot going on, and always some very interesting rides to see. david July 4, 2015 at 6:00 pm Steve Mcqueen is a hero to me because later in life before he got sick he sought after God, the truth, and Jesus. He was afraid to be disingenuous, I love that! He loved Jesus and I heard only found happiness and peace after he did.

Funny how he and Evil Knievel, hollywood and self hyped cool men both realized that Jesus is the way, the truth and real life. The real story of The Great Escape | MCN The real story of The Great Escape Published: 24 December 2013 If there’s one film scene which everyone remembers it’s the bike chase in The Great Escape. After dozens of failed escape attempts ‘The Cooler King’, played by the inimitable Steve McQueen, finally makes it to within sight of freedom. He roars across the countryside on his stolen BMW pursued by a hoard of manic Nazi motorcyclists intent on his death. With no possible escape, great or otherwise, our hero chooses a glorious finale. Winding the bike up to maximum revs, he makes an incredible jump across the 12-foot high barbed wire fence. Stuck in No Man’s Land he roars about a bit before crashing into another fence. He’s then led away by the Nazis and thrown back into solitary. It’s brilliant cinema – but the story behind the filming of this scene is an epic in itself. Although McQueen did not jump the fence himself, he was far more than just an actor who could ride motorcycles.

In fact, he was an international quality racer and an avid motorcycle fan. And the man who had introduced Steve to motorcycles was Bud Ekins - a legend amongst Californian bike racers. Bud learned to ride on the fire roads that, in those halcyon days, began in the hills directly behind his dad’s North Hollywood welding shop, in what is now almost central Los Angeles. The 19-year-old Ekins’ first bike was a Harley but he longed for the light, fast British bikes that turned so much better on the dirt . Soon he was riding a 500cc Matchless G.80 - and winning Hare & Hounds events all over California. Then in 1950 he saw a film about European scrambling and was determined to see whether he could match the Europeans at their own game. After nine days at sea, Bud arrived at Southampton to find Britain still very much recovering from the war. “My first impression was that everyone looked tired and worn. They also looked so old fashioned - but the racing was hot!” Bud proved able to match the best of the British off-road riders and ran in the top 10 at many national meetings.

America’s Mr Triumph Bud’s prowess as a rider was matched by his business skills and in 1955 he became a Triumph dealer. In a few years, he had become the biggest Triumph dealer in the world with a turnover topping £500,000 – at a time when a nice detached house in Britain was £2000! On the way, he became the first American to master the rigours of the International Six Days Trial, winning four Gold Medals, and dominated the classic American races like the Big Bear Run and the Catalina Grand Prix. In between racing and selling bikes, Bud appeared in over 500 films during 25 years as a stuntman and co-ordinator. Bullitt, another McQueen epic, was also Ekins’ work and one of the wildest films in which he appeared. “The theory was that all the streets in San Francisco were closed but it wasn’t possible. We’d come over the top of a hill and find some guy had come out of his driveway and was determined to drive to work, film or no film.” Despite his remarkable skill as a stunt organiser, Bud was no lover of Hollywood.

He said: “The money’s good but there’s an awful lot of time spent doing nothing.” Jumping into history The Great Escape jump is the one stunt which brought a smile to his face. Bud takes up the story. “I’d sort of taught Steve to ride bikes and when he was offered a part in The Great Escape he persuaded director John Sturges to write a bike chase into the script. At the same time Steve insisted that he would only work with me. “I’d never done film work so when I went for an interview I bought a new shirt, tie and a suit - but I needn’t have bothered because Steve picked me up in his D-Type Jaguar dressed as he always was in Levis and an old T-shirt. “I didn’t hear anything for four weeks, and then the studio called and said to collect my tickets right away and get on a plane for Munich. “When we got there the German production manager had hired a couple of pre-war German road race stars but whenever Steve took off they couldn’t even keep him in sight so it wasn’t much of a chase at all. So we tried it with a sidecar but Sturges didn’t like it.

“We also had Tim Gibbes working with us - the Aussie motocross champ - so in the end we had Tim and me chasing Steve while the German production guy gave us daggers. There are also shots where Steve chased himself. “The special effects manager worked out the final scene, where Steve has to get through the fence to escape to Switzerland, and then left us to figure out how to do the jump. Tim and me went out early one Sunday with the 650cc Triumph we were using which was supposed to be a side-valve BMW. “We laid out the fence a couple of feet high. Then we dug a ramp out with shovels, about nine or 10 feet long, and I hit the ramp in third gear at about 50mph and cleared the fence easy. “So we dug it out a little more and raised the fence to eight feet and I cleared it. Then I hit the ramp at 60 in fourth and jumped 12 feet high and 65 feet down. Then I said to Sturges, ‘Okay, let’s do it!’ “I backed the Triumph off and then got on it hard. When I took off, I throttled right back and it was silent.

You know, everything was just silent - the whole crew and everything was just silent. And then when I landed they were cheering like crazy. "They did just one take and afterwards the assistant director came up to me and said, ‘Well, that’s a $1000 jump if I ever saw one’ and I didn’t know anything about negotiating fees so I said okay and that was that. Two days’ work, one jump and we were finished.” The do-anything TR6 Today, the thought of using a road bike in a film stunt would be unthinkable. But in 1963 the world was a very different place. In many ways it wasn’t so much which bike would Bud Ekins and Steve McQueen use for The Great Escape but simply that there was only one choice – and that was the fabulous, do-everything, Triumph TR6. A key factor for the film crew was that the TR6 was very much their bike and they knew it back to front – even though it was designed and built in England. Europeans always preferred the TR6’s lighter, more nimble sibling – the 500cc TR5, but the Yanks loved the creamy, instant power of the 650.

In fact, the TR6 had come about entirely from the demand by Americans for ‘cubes’. They wanted engines at least as big as the Harleys of the day and so, in 1950, Triumph made the Thunderbird for them. Almost as soon as the Thunderbird arrived in the US, riders began racing it so Triumph encouraged them first with an all-alloy TR6 and later what was effectively a single carb version of the Bonneville – the ‘Great Escape’ bike. It’s easy to stand back and look at a TR6 and smile at the thought of Ekins even thinking about riding a machine which, by modern standards, looks as competent as a Neanderthal stone axe. But the TR6 motor is an absolute peach – not just good, but brilliant. From tickover to around 6000rpm the TR6 provides seamless, instant power. 42bhp doesn’t sound much, but it gave the TR6 world-beating off-road performance, and a genuine 100mph, as McQueen showed in the Tarmac part of the chase scenes. Nothing in the 1960s world could match it.

Both McQueen and Ekins knew that whatever they demanded of the TR6 in the film – and McQueen got arrested several times for reckless riding when the crew was not filming – the motorcycles would deliver. Probably the one area which would really frighten us today is the suspension. Triumph’s front fork was dire, offering a nominal 150mm of travel of which only the middle third really worked. Things were no better at the rear end with the oil-damped Girling dampers perhaps even worse than Triumph’s front fork. This is why the jump in The Great Escape is text book perfect for the era. Bud and Tim Gibbes designed the dug-out ramp to ensure that the bike took off in a gentle arc, landing on the back wheel after the 65-foot long, 12-foot high jump. Done this way, the Girlings would bottom out, the frame flex and the front wheel would come down to earth controllably. That’s the theory, and it was possible, as Ekins showed – but only if you also possessed a man-sized set of cojones!

By MCN Steve McQueen | Mostly by Motorcycle Mostly by Motorcycle Here they are The Top Ten Movies that Feature Motorcycles as Co-Stars, in order of appearance. Number Two… On one of the Triumph TT Specials used in the film The Great Escape (1963) – The Great Escape contains one of the most memorable motorcycle chase scenes of all time. Steve McQueen is being chased across the Bavarian countryside by the entire German army. It looks like he might actually get away, then he’s shot at and finally crashes into a barbed-wire fence. McQueen is supposed to be riding a World War 2 BMW but it is actually a 1962 Triumph. McQueen explains “We had four bikes for this film. I was running a TT Special 650 Triumph. We painted it olive drab and put on a luggage rack and an old seat to make it look like a wartime BMW. We couldn’t use a real BMW, not at the speeds we were running, since those old babies were rigid-frame jobs, and couldn’t take the punishment.” McQueen did all his own stunts for The Great Escape, including the final 60-foot jump over the fence.

As the story goes: For insurance purposes McQueen himself was not allowed to make the jump but the real reason was, quite simply, he crashed. Bud Ekins was the stunt rider for the film and McQueen’s good friend, he managed to pull off the jump that is the one that made it in to the film. Ekins went on to double for McQueen in Bullit and did much of the riding for the TV show CHiPs. McQueen did make it into the final chase scene though, in disguise, as one of the pursuing German soldiers. He was also the German soldier who is taken out by a wire his character strings across the road to obtain the bike for the aforementioned chase scene. The magic of editing. Just like The Wild One a decade before, The Great Escape was another huge boost to sales of Triumph motorcycles in the US. Both McQueen and Ekins were fans of the bikes. Ekins owned a Triumph dealership and McQueen owned, raced and collected dozens of them. Elvis, Bob Dylan and Clint Eastwood owned them but it was Steve McQueen and The Great Escape that cemented Triumph’s reputation as the King of Cool. (If you’re reading this in email or RSS, click here to watch video.

) See number one here . Are you curious about number three? Subscribe and get the next article right to your inbox! Steve McQueen's introduction to Triumph motorcycles - Telegraph Triumph Steve McQueen's introduction to Triumph motorcycles On what would have been his 84th birthday, we examine the origin of Steve McQueen's connection with Triumph motorcycles As well as a Hollywood actor, Steve McQueen was a very good motorcyclist Photo: REX FEATURES By Nigel Winter Comments The number of people who have any first-hand knowledge of how Steve McQueen , who would have celebrated his 84th birthday today, came to own his first Triumph motorcycle is naturally dwindling. But Don Brown of Johnson Motors in Pasadena, California, knew better than anyone because just over 60 years ago he rode that very bike to Universal Studios for a then unknown actor called Terence “Steve” McQueen. Don recalled that in 1953 his boss had taken Hollywood to task over the production of The Wild One, suggesting that the film created the impression that motorcyclists were “…just not nice to know…” and urged him to stop production: to no avail.

Thus when McQueen’s agent got through to Don, he knew what the response would be to any further involvement with “Hollywood types”. Don said: “I kept saying no, but in the end I got Steve to purchase the bike at cost and I delivered it to him at Universal Studios in the city. That was Steve’s first new bike.” It’s incredible to reflect on how close McQueen probably came to transferring his biking affections. But McQueen was a real motorcyclist rather than a “Wild One”. Don recalled: “He got involved with a dealer we told him to go to in order to get service – Bud Ekins – they became great friends and Bud helped him to learn racing in the desert and he became rather good. Steve, Bud and I entered an enduro in northern California and we had great fun.” Related Articles Triumph Motorcycles profits slow amid eurozone uncertainty 15 Nov 2012 But it was the 1964 International Six Day Trial that went a long way to creating the enduring image of McQueen the motorcyclist.

The actor rode in the American team and, by chance, French photographer François Gragnon captured him in competition and hanging out with other bikers, rare moments of a Hollywood superstar being just one of the lads in a far less contrived age. Steve McQueen in a film still from The Great Escape PHOTO REX FEATURES Equally uncontrived was McQueen’s friendship with his biking buddies, in particular Ekins. The world over, there are posters of the immortal leap over the wire in The Great Escape – but it was Ekins who rode the scene and emerged from the jump to tell the director, “Don’t ever ask me to do that again!” But he came back for more. Remember the guy who piles the motorcycle towards the end of the famed car chase in Bullitt? That, too, was Ekins. McQueen’s career went stratospheric and he became the highest-paid actor in the world. Don says reflectively: “I think Steve became very 'Hollywood’ after he did The Great Escape .” By the mid-Seventies the British motorcycle industry was in freefall. But one brand was too “cool” to go the way of Norton, BSA and all the others.

The designs of Edward Turner and the “King of Cool’s” patronage ensured that the Triumph name would rise from the ashes. But McQueen would not live to see it. Don says: “When Steve was dying, he tried to contact me by phone but I was on another assignment and my secretary didn’t know who he was so she failed to call me, so I missed him.” Looking at Gragnon’s photographs, it seems McQueen was at his happiest on a bike; motorcyclists the world over certainly like to believe so. Nigel C. Winter is the author of the motorcycle book, Travelling with Mr Turner

Question: What type of motor cycle did Steve McQueen ride in the film " The Great Escape"?
Answer: TRIUMPH